In 2006, Nora O'Connell, vice-president of the non-profit advocacy group Women Thrive, traveled to Markala, a small village in the mountains of Honduras, to learn about the success of an all-female coffee cooperative. The cooperative, Coordinadora de Mujeres Campesinas de La Paz (COMUCAP), trains women to grow and sell coffee and aloe vera. Today, it employs over 256 women in the community.

When she asked COMUCAP's founder, Dulce Marlen Contreras, why she started the cooperative, O'Connell recalls, "I was expecting to hear about the challenges they faced in terms of poverty."

Instead, O'Connell and her team learned about the less obvious reason for the organization's genesis: the prevalence of domestic violence in the community. The women, O'Connell says, were mistreated at home. And if they did summon the will to report their husbands' abusive behavior to the police, the municipal government did nothing to help them.

COMUCAP works, O'Connell explains, because it harnesses a basic societal law: economic power leads to social power. "When women don't have economic resources, they are more likely to be trapped in violent situations," O'Connell says. But by earning an income, women gain the comfort of financial independence, and thus the option to pick up and find a better life somewhere else.

O'Connell evokes the story of COMUCAP when explaining why Women Thrive -- in conjunction with Amnesty International USA and the Family Violence Prevention Fund -- helped develop I-VAWA (S.2982, HR. 4594), or the International Violence Against Women Act. Originally introduced in the House and Senate during the last Congress, the bill was reintroduced in February 2010 by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Representatives Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) and Ted Poe (R-Texas).

The bill was scheduled to go to markup in the Senate Foreign Relations committee last Wednesday. But the meeting was canceled at the last minute. According to Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy, Sen. John Kerry intends to bring up the bill in the November lame duck session.

Given its high-profile congressional backers and Obama administration's emphasis on foreign aid, it seems that I-VAWA may be successful in committee come November. At last week's Millennium Development Goals Summit at the United Nations, Obama emphasized the importance of the U.S. role in global development and aid--specifically citing women's issues as being vital to international security and economic growth. Toward the end of his speech, Obama appeared to refer indirectly to I-VAWA.

"We know that countries are more likely to prosper when they tap the talents of all their people," he said. "That's why we're investing in the health, education and rights of women, and working to empower the next generation of women entrepreneurs and leaders. Because when mothers and daughters have access to opportunity, economies grow and governance improves."

I-VAWA is also distinctive among foreign aid bills in its assertive approach to helping alleviate women's suffering abroad. It promises to address the issue of women's violence along multiple fronts: health, legal, economic, social, and humanitarian. It will begin by designing programs for 5-20 countries, all using various best-practice data that the nonprofits involved in the legislation's development have already gathered.

The bill has bipartisan support in the House and Senate, backing from more than 200 U.S. and overseas nongovernmental organizations, and additional endorsement from the American public: According to a poll by Women Thrive and the Family Violence Prevention Fund this spring, more than 60 percent of Americans believe ending gender-based violence should be a legislative priority. More than 80 percent support I-VAWA.

"This is one of the few foreign policy issues for the American people that is really black and white," says O'Connell confidently.

But it may not be that simple. Ostensibly, violence against women isn't a partisan issue. But part of the bill has tapped into two issues that are very much a part of partisan politics: foreign aid funding and abortion.

STEPHEN COLECCHI, director of the office of international justice and peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, supports the goals of the legislation, but is worried that the bill's definition of violence against women is overly broad. "We want to be sure that it does not include the possibility of promoting changes in abortion law overseas," Colecchi explains.

David Christensen, the senior director of congressional affairs at the Family Research Council, shares Colecchi's concerns. He points to the definition given for 'violence against women and girls' in the Senate's version of the bill as troublesome. The bill defines violence against women as "any act of violence against women or girls that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm ... or arbitrary deprivations of liberty..."

"What is 'arbitrary deprivation of liberty'?" asks Christensen. The bill, he says, "seems innocuous," but "has some serious problems in it." For example, "If you believe abortion is an inherent right and you're in a country that does not allow abortion, than this potentially could be interpreted that pro-life law is depriving somebody's liberty."

Another potential problem: I-VAWA doesn't amend the Foreign Assistance Act. This, he says, means it isn't covered under the Helms amendment, which states that federal funds can't be used to fund abortion overseas as a method of family planning.

But a congressional aide at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who spoke on the condition of anonymity says that the restrictions on foreign assistance, including Helms, apply without needing to amend the FAA. The aide also responded to concerns over the definition of 'violence against women.'

"I-VAWA is not aimed at creating a new definition of 'violence against women,' but rather uses the extremely widely accepted definition put forward in the UNGA [UN General Assembly]," the aide said. "The definition is meant to be a guide, and it does not aim to define every term, the way a criminal statute would."

Despite these claims, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he would oppose the bill in its current form.

"The bill is inconsistent with long-standing U.S. foreign aid policies regarding the sanctity of life," Corker said. "We strongly support much of what is in this legislation and believe it should become law, so hopefully before the bill is brought up again, the necessary changes will be made and the bill can win broad consensus among the committee."

Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thinks some senators will propose amendments to change the bill's language so it can't be misconstrued as pro-abortion. But he'll likely oppose the bill for another reason. "There is no money to pay for it," Lugar says. "This is simply another program that will cost over a billion dollars, and there's nothing provided for it."

I-VAWA is an authorization bill, which means it doesn't actually provide any funding. If passed, I-VAWA will be included in a springtime appropriations bill which would actually fund the legislation's programs. According to a congressional aide in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a staffer at one of the nonprofit organizations that helped draft the bill, Senator Lugar referenced an outdated and incorrect price tag: The price of the legislation will not be over a billion dollars. And since they are still unclear about how many countries will be included in the pilot program (as few as 5, as many as 20), it's impossible to assign a specific dollar amount to the bill.

The typical U.S. International Affairs budget hovers around $55 billion each fiscal year (FY). Anda Adams, the associate director for the Brookings Institution Center for Universal Education, says that number rose to $58.94 billion in 2010 because of a supplemental bill passed to fund activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti. The House has request $54 billion for FY11, and the Senate has requested $56 billion.

That outcome would be especially likely if democrats lose seats in the upcoming election. I-VAWA's fate will be determined by how willing the next Congress will be to allocate funds to foreign aid. Some experts are cheering a recent poll from the USGLC, which reveals support among military personnel for diplomacy and development-based aid. Some experts say the poll could help convince Congress to allocate more funds to development-based aid, given the credibility that military personnel tend to have among legislators.

Others, such as Kristen Lord, the vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, worry about the future of development-based aid bills like I-VAWA.

"My concern is we haven't seen very much movement in Congress investing more money in diplomacy and development," she says, citing the "all-star" team in the Obama administration--Clinton, Mullen and Gates--supporting this legislation. "Sometimes I worry that if this team can't pull this off, if they can't address this balance, what does that portend for the future?"

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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today.

— Deuteronomy 15: 12–15

Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation.

Even when a dentist kills an adored lion, and everyone is furious, there’s loftier righteousness to be had.

Now is the point in the story of Cecil the lion—amid non-stop news coverage and passionate social-media advocacy—when people get tired of hearing about Cecil the lion. Even if they hesitate to say it.

But Cecil fatigue is only going to get worse. On Friday morning, Zimbabwe’s environment minister, Oppah Muchinguri, called for the extradition of the man who killed him, the Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer. Muchinguri would like Palmer to be “held accountable for his illegal action”—paying a reported $50,000 to kill Cecil with an arrow after luring him away from protected land. And she’s far from alone in demanding accountability. This week, the Internet has served as a bastion of judgment and vigilante justice—just like usual, except that this was a perfect storm directed at a single person. It might be called an outrage singularity.

Writing used to be a solitary profession. How did it become so interminably social?

Whether we’re behind the podium or awaiting our turn, numbing our bottoms on the chill of metal foldout chairs or trying to work some life into our terror-stricken tongues, we introverts feel the pain of the public performance. This is because there are requirements to being a writer. Other than being a writer, I mean. Firstly, there’s the need to become part of the writing “community”, which compels every writer who craves self respect and success to attend community events, help to organize them, buzz over them, and—despite blitzed nerves and staggering bowels—present and perform at them. We get through it. We bully ourselves into it. We dose ourselves with beta blockers. We drink. We become our own worst enemies for a night of validation and participation.

Forget credit hours—in a quest to cut costs, universities are simply asking students to prove their mastery of a subject.

MANCHESTER, Mich.—Had Daniella Kippnick followed in the footsteps of the hundreds of millions of students who have earned university degrees in the past millennium, she might be slumping in a lecture hall somewhere while a professor droned. But Kippnick has no course lectures. She has no courses to attend at all. No classroom, no college quad, no grades. Her university has no deadlines or tenure-track professors.

Instead, Kippnick makes her way through different subject matters on the way to a bachelor’s in accounting. When she feels she’s mastered a certain subject, she takes a test at home, where a proctor watches her from afar by monitoring her computer and watching her over a video feed. If she proves she’s competent—by getting the equivalent of a B—she passes and moves on to the next subject.

Most of the big names in futurism are men. What does that mean for the direction we’re all headed?

In the future, everyone’s going to have a robot assistant. That’s the story, at least. And as part of that long-running narrative, Facebook just launched its virtual assistant. They’re calling it Moneypenny—the secretary from the James Bond Films. Which means the symbol of our march forward, once again, ends up being a nod back. In this case, Moneypenny is a send-up to an age when Bond’s womanizing was a symbol of manliness and many women were, no matter what they wanted to be doing, secretaries.

Why can’t people imagine a future without falling into the sexist past? Why does the road ahead keep leading us back to a place that looks like the Tomorrowland of the 1950s? Well, when it comes to Moneypenny, here’s a relevant datapoint: More than two thirds of Facebook employees are men. That’s a ratio reflected among another key group: futurists.

During the multi-country press tour for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, not even Jon Stewart has dared ask Tom Cruise about Scientology.

During the media blitz for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation over the past two weeks, Tom Cruise has seemingly been everywhere. In London, he participated in a live interview at the British Film Institute with the presenter Alex Zane, the movie’s director, Christopher McQuarrie, and a handful of his fellow cast members. In New York, he faced off with Jimmy Fallon in a lip-sync battle on The Tonight Show and attended the Monday night premiere in Times Square. And, on Tuesday afternoon, the actor recorded an appearance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, where he discussed his exercise regimen, the importance of a healthy diet, and how he still has all his own hair at 53.

Stewart, who during his career has won two Peabody Awards for public service and the Orwell Award for “distinguished contribution to honesty and clarity in public language,” represented the most challenging interviewer Cruise has faced on the tour, during a challenging year for the actor. In April, HBO broadcast Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear, a film based on the book of the same title by Lawrence Wright exploring the Church of Scientology, of which Cruise is a high-profile member. The movie alleges, among other things, that the actor personally profited from slave labor (church members who were paid 40 cents an hour to outfit the star’s airplane hangar and motorcycle), and that his former girlfriend, the actress Nazanin Boniadi, was punished by the Church by being forced to do menial work after telling a friend about her relationship troubles with Cruise. For Cruise “not to address the allegations of abuse,” Gibney said in January, “seems to me palpably irresponsible.” But in The Daily Show interview, as with all of Cruise’s other appearances, Scientology wasn’t mentioned.

An attack on an American-funded military group epitomizes the Obama Administration’s logistical and strategic failures in the war-torn country.

Last week, the U.S. finally received some good news in Syria:.After months of prevarication, Turkey announced that the American military could launch airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria from its base in Incirlik. The development signaled that Turkey, a regional power, had at last agreed to join the fight against ISIS.

The announcement provided a dose of optimism in a conflict that has, in the last four years, killed over 200,000 and displaced millions more. Days later, however, the positive momentum screeched to a halt. Earlier this week, fighters from the al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group aligned with al-Qaeda, reportedly captured the commander of Division 30, a Syrian militia that receives U.S. funding and logistical support, in the countryside north of Aleppo. On Friday, the offensive escalated: Al-Nusra fighters attacked Division 30 headquarters, killing five and capturing others. According to Agence France Presse, the purpose of the attack was to obtain sophisticated weapons provided by the Americans.

The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

The Swiss bank UBS is one of the biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton intervened to help it out with the IRS. And after that, the Swiss bank paid Bill Clinton $1.5 million for speaking gigs. TheWall Street Journal reported all that and more Thursday in an article that highlights huge conflicts of interest that the Clintons have created in the recent past.

The piece begins by detailing how Clinton helped the global bank.

“A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts,” the newspaper reports. “If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court. Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”

Members of Colombia's younger generation say they “will not torture for tradition.”

MEDELLÍN, Colombia—On a scorching Saturday in February, hundreds of young men and women in Medellín stripped down to their swimsuit bottoms, slathered themselves in black and red paint, and sprawled out on the hot cement in Los Deseos Park in the north of the city. From my vantage point on the roof of a nearby building, the crowd of seminude protesters formed the shape of a bleeding bull—a vivid statement against the centuries-old culture of bullfighting in Colombia.

It wasn’t long ago that Colombia was among the world’s most important countries for bullfighting, due to the quality of its bulls and its large number of matadors. In his 1989 book Colombia: Tierra de Toros (“Colombia: Land of Bulls”), Alberto Lopera chronicled the maturation of the sport that Spanish conquistadors had introduced to South America in the 16th century, from its days as an unorganized brouhaha of bulls and booze in colonial plazas to a more traditional Spanish-style spectacle whose fans filled bullfighting rings across the country.

Some say the so-called sharing economy has gotten away from its central premise—sharing.

This past March, in an up-and-coming neighborhood of Portland, Maine, a group of residents rented a warehouse and opened a tool-lending library. The idea was to give locals access to everyday but expensive garage, kitchen, and landscaping tools—such as chainsaws, lawnmowers, wheelbarrows, a giant cider press, and soap molds—to save unnecessary expense as well as clutter in closets and tool sheds.

The residents had been inspired by similar tool-lending libraries across the country—in Columbus, Ohio; in Seattle, Washington; in Portland, Oregon. The ethos made sense to the Mainers. “We all have day jobs working to make a more sustainable world,” says Hazel Onsrud, one of the Maine Tool Library’s founders, who works in renewable energy. “I do not want to buy all of that stuff.”